Twenty Two
by Kerrison
Summary: Booth reminds Brennan that even after Twenty-Two years of waiting for the logical choice, there was still one thing missing.


**AN: Thanks to d'angeli for her great friendship and awesome writing prompts. She did it again - sent me a prompt and I spat out this nonsense which, if like last time, is probably not at all what she was looking for. **

**But it was still fun to sit and write while I was stuck at home sick today. :( **

* * *

The sound of their laughter faded into the general din of the bar's noise. She smiled, peeling the label on her imported beer, a bad habit she had picked up from years of post-case drink nights with Booth.

He leaned back against the wall, stretching sideways in the booth and paused with an amused look on his face, beer bottle poised halfway between the table and his lips.

Brennan looked up and found his face an enigma. She had gotten much better over the years at reading people. And she was almost an expert at reading Booth – almost. There were still a few expressions and topics she wasn't able to suss out.

However the look he currently wore wasn't among them. She knew that look. He was thinking, analyzing, and finding something intriguing.

"What?" she asked, a curious half-smile on her lips.

He shook his head at her and a breath crossed his lips in a soft unintentional chuckle. "Twenty-two? Really?"

Brennan looked down, regarding her beer bottle and swallowed the unintentional speck of shame that snuck in. "I'm still not clear on why that fascinates you so much, Booth. There are plenty of people who wait for various reasons. Religion and cultural reasons are on the top of the list. My reason was more intellectual."

"I think that's crap," he said softly.

"Excuse me?"

"I think that's crap," he repeated, his tone gentle. "I think that's a line of rationalization you've fed yourself for years to justify something that is entirely illogical and completely emotional."

"I don't make important decisions based on emotion, Booth. You know that."

"Sure you do," he said simply, sitting back up in the restaurant booth and holding his bottle in front of him, his hands clasped loosely around the sweaty glass. "You just hide them behind whatever logic you can find."

"Booth-"

He shook his head and interrupted her protest. "Bones," he started, his voice hushed and a bit sultry, "I think when it comes to _that_, using emotion to make the choice was definitely the right way to go."

She frowned at him. "It was purely logical. I waited until I found a man who could provide a –"

"Skillful introduction," he said, repeating her words from earlier back at her in perfect Bones-tone.

"Yes!"

"It's not Advanced Calculus, Bones," he said. "You don't sign up for diagrams and pie-charts. It's two people who trust each other enough to share what is possibly one of the most amazing experiences in humanity."

"First off, I don't know how you would classify it that highly, Booth. There are plenty of other things in life that are amazing which certainly can't be reduced to just biological urges." She paused, finally getting the label free from her bottle and beginning to roll the wet paper in her fingers. She felt his eyes flick between her face and her awkwardly fidgeting fingers. "And secondly, it certainly is an experience where you would want to ensure that your partner is prepared to provide sound instruction."

"It's not a class, Bones," he repeated, his hands leaving his beer bottle and stretching across the table and covering hers. He stilled her fidgeting and gently pulled the wad of paper from her grip.

She looked at their melded hands before allowing her eyes to rise and meet his. Her breath caught in her throat with the intensity of his gaze.

"It's not a class," he said again, hoping to drill the concept into her. "You may have thought you were waiting for someone who was a good teacher, but you were really waiting for someone you could trust."

"I–" she started but her hands were gently squeezed and she bit off her own words.

He began to run his thumbs across the back of her knuckles. "It's ok to trust the person you're with," he said, hoping he didn't sound patronizing. "In fact, it's usually preferred. You're baring all. You're the most vulnerable you can be. It is the most intimate you can be and you've got to trust the other person to catch you."

"I believe my experience was perhaps different from yours," she said, dropping her gaze back to their hands.

Seeley shook his head. "Doesn't matter," he said. "Because you've got plenty of opportunities to make sure next time it's about making love, not about satisfying biological urges."

"Booth, there's no evidence that-"

He cut her off again, knowing exactly where the conversation was going. No evidence that emotions were anything more than chemicals released … blah blah blah.

"When you've spent hours, days, months being caressed by words, stroked with simple touches, and finding pleasure in someone's company….. You'll fall into bed laughing as you bump noses, sighing as he pushes the hair out of your face, and you'll want to do everything you can to make him feel as loved and wanted as he makes you feel."

Booth paused and unclenched her hands, sliding his into hers and holding them lightly, still gently tracing her knuckles with his thumbs. "That's not just good sex. When you find that person, when he makes you _scream_," he said, whispering the word and causing a shiver to slide down her back. "Because you feel so unbelievably loved and cherished… when all of that happens, you'll know its about so much more than serotonin and oxytocin and science. It's about finding your soul mate. It's about finding that one moment where two people exist at the same time. It's about making love."

She had no reply.

Temperance Brennan had spent her life looking for security and stability and the truth. Her childhood was fraught with turmoil and acts of betrayal and shutting her heart off to love. As an adult she had made peace with separating emotions from needs.

She had nothing to say that would possibly help him understand -- believing that sort of love existed would be believing that she had been missing out for so many years.

"You'll get it one day, Bones. I promise you," he said with a grin.

Booth slid his hands out of her grasp and she immediately regretted the loss of his warm touch. Her knuckles felt abandoned without the soothing caressing sweeps of his thumbs.

"I'm glad I didn't know you before you were twenty-two," he said, shaking his head. "I didn't have as much patience then- there's _no way_ I would have been able to wait." He winked and slipped his hands off hers.

She gaped at him, wide-eyed, processing the implication of his words – those both spoken and unspoken.

She felt a faint blush color her cheeks she tried desperately to will it away.

He stood from the booth and tossed a twenty on the table before leaning down and ever so softly kissing her temple. "Drive safe. I'll see you tomorrow."

The strict set of chivalrous rules he held himself to nagged at him for walking away. This was perhaps the first time he'd ever left her in the middle of a restaurant- not walking her to her car. He was always the gentleman.

But he knew her as well as he knew himself; if he stayed, they'd bicker or buckle. And while he was sure that finally buckling to the growing tension would be enjoyable, it wasn't time.

Not yet.


End file.
